DEPENDENCE [di péndənss] = a depending on another for material or emotional support|| trust, reliance || the state of being contingent.
noun Also called dependency
1. need for something: a need for something or somebody to be available in order to exist or survive
• financial dependence
• dependence on public transport
2. physical or psychological need: a physical or psychological need to use a drug or other substance regularly, despite the fact that it is likely to have a damaging effect


That was (or is) I all these years.

Allow me to travel back a little to my silver years.
I miss what was. I woke up today in a rather unusual mood. The tingling I feel at most times are not unusual, however as time goes by, I began to get accustomed to such malady. Yet today, the mood was not because of this neuropathic pain but I am in a state of looking back what was.

Every morning it has been a routine to get a daily dose of caffeine, and nicotine. A dependency which I realize I abhor now but nonetheless continue to operate. Sitting in my usual spot, the veranda, to consume the daily dose, I caught myself staring at our old house (which I see everyday though).

Memories came flashing back.

Rollerblading in the rain. Playing step or no, volleyball, baragatan, luksong baka, luksong tinik, lying in the grass, running around ricefields that needs tilling in the rain throwing mud at playmates or just mud bathing like water buffalos, picnicking, carrying pails of water to water the plants around the house, violent quarrels with my brother and sisters that made us chase whoever to get back on each other physically and sometimes climb a mango tree as high as we could so no one would get caught in each others raging hands. I also recall when we kneel in front of the altar sometimes on salt or mongo beans whenever we make something unpleasant to our grandmother’s eyes, such as those seemingly gruesome quarrels growing siblings usually do. As well as getting chased by our aunt with any stick she could hold on whenever we trick her into sleeping during the afternoons but when she dozes off or went away to do something upon thinking we’re sleeping like angels, we slip out of the house to play with our neighbors. Those are some memories of my childhood I so long for. Though seemingly painful getting smacked, it was wonderful as I think of it now. Children, you cannot really discipline them, can you?

Some childhood neighbors has left town, some got married. I was left alone here, and single. New generations has emerged from nowhere which let me say sadly, I became a part of. I mean, these teens have been, well, sort of “friends” I have when I stay in the neighborhood which is at most times now. I am the only one grouping with them who is in his late 20’s. It occurs to me that I have not outgrown the child in me. New generation teens almost have the same minds as we were in the 90’s so I can relate to whatever their talking about. But of course, being a teen from another decade to a grown up man in this generation there are some of their conversations that I have to decode.

When Lee Jack introduced me to the life in town, I met new people and eventually became friends and “friends” with them. I realized a life I have missed. I am not a solid Nabueno although I was born and raised here. Until I met the real world outside sta lucia a few years back that I realized I love this town and proud to be a nabueno. Although a ghost town and let me add, people feed themselves by prying on other people’s lives, (which I don’t like but it has been a trend among nabueno’s that cannot get out of. Or say, in general, it is what a society really is. People in each society live on gossips.) a town such as Nabua whom everybody knows everybody is still a place I call home.

With these memories of my childhood to my recent years, became my comfort zones. Even if these comfort zones I call hurt me at times, no matter where I go I still keep coming back. Even if it meant that I’ll be left out alone and probably friendless and horribly single in this ghost town (and neighborhood) to rot, I still love it here. How’s that for being masochistic? On second thought, I don’t want to be left alone where everyone becomes somebody with a bankbook, a wife(or a husband) and kids, a house, a business, and basically just having a comfortable and secured future.

Because of my enormous dependency on my comfort zones I am left out not growing neither changing as a person. I would rather say, I am in a reverse mode in terms of growth. It’s sickening, you know, when I realize from time to time how stagnant my life has become. Just the thought that I maybe dying, and haven’t proved or accomplish anything in this so called world makes me want to hop on the next bus and proved that I can be someone I want to be. But, this dependency takes me aback. I wonder what my creator would tell me when he asks “what have you accomplished in your life” when and if I answer his question with an impassive ‘NO’. Would he let me go back to live or would he just throw me to a place where he stuck people who did nothing about their lives?

I could tell you the many reasons why I am stuck to being dependent but I am going to keep it to myself for now. Its not that I am all too dependent in all these, it’s just comforting to be in a place where you could act like you own it, and so reassuring to be in a place or have things or see and be with people so familiar to you. Call it extreme attachment because from the sounds of someone’s footsteps I could tell who it is, I can tell from a far who is this person walking towards my direction, from a creak of whichever door in the house I could tell which room was opened, or I could even walk with eyes closed around the house or could even tell whose vehicle passed by in front of the house with just the sound of its running engine.

Anyway, I am just melancholic about everything. The old house full of memories, this new house where I found some challenging despairs, the greenery, the aging and changed people in this neighborhood though I don’t converse with as well as the new residents, the people I have become friends with, the people I am attracted with… everything, just everything is home sweet home.

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...because of all these thoughts, and the unusual mood I decided to get a haircut late this afternoon. A rather liberating haircut that I've been wanting to do.


booooooyyyyaaaaahhhhh